Under My Eye | Bianca Mackail

The show opens with a banging club track and a body moving, gyrating wildly as you enter the room. The dancer does not stop while you find your seat.

Welcome to Bianca's mind - a world where one must variously explore extremes - the boxes we entrap ourselves with, the love of self which can defend against all intrusions, the self-deprecating labels with which we inflict ourselves with, the challenges of a restless soul, the glory in flight, the truth which sits so close to the surface that you can grasp it with your hands anytime you like, you just have to reach in.

Bianca can literally put her body anywhere she chooses. Her physical control, honed after years of hard work in a multitude of disciplines. She can execute a handstand perfectly with a lit candle carried on the sole of her foot. Her aerial skill is exemplary. What does an artist do when she has this kind of command over her body, in her very first full length feature? Why, anything she chooses.

She speaks, often, recordings of monologues echoing the endless diatribes inside our minds. Positive, negative, challenging, whimsical, pointed, messy, lost, clear. Of all the phrases that lingered after this one hit me hardest.

"Why is it we say, 'I have a body', not 'I am a body?'" And this messy body of mine, that cries when it's touched and loves the bright lights, it flinched, and I wondered why I too have this deep disconnect from the one thing I can never be separated from. Why is the mind so restless? And the body so far away?

The work isn't quite finished yet, it is arthouse as fuck and messy and glittering with freshly hewn purpose. It is a multifaceted retro/intro-spective, a deep-dive into the mess of critical internal voices that fill our every waking moment in this cruel and capitalistic world. This is not work for the braying masses, this is work for the fascinated few, for those that critique the voices in their heads and shout back at the insidious entrapment of the world.

This work stands out in a mass of sexual-sequinned glamour pusses and full-frontal theatrical wonders. It is raw and fresh and utterly unique and when there is a second season don't miss the opportunity to check out an artist in full flight.

Creator and performer | Bianca Mackail

Director | Celia White